


morning after the night before

by tsunkiku



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cigarettes, Drabble, Ficlet, M/M, Morning After, One Night Stands, Sex mentioned and described as past event, alcohol use, atmospheric morning vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 17:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11514339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunkiku/pseuds/tsunkiku
Summary: The man placed the cigarette between Aries’ lips. Maybe he wanted to watch his lips yield to an intrusion again, or maybe he thought sharing a smoke was intimate. Maybe he just wanted to see what Aries would do when provoked. “You’re sexy.”Aries’ eyes glittered as he inhaled. The breath of smoke that billowed out between his lips was slow. “Yeah? I know.”





	morning after the night before

Morning had a scent. Levering himself up onto his elbows to peer out of his window, Aries drank it in and filled both lungs. 

It tasted of light, filtering through the thin, ill-fitting curtains that shrouded the windows, interrupted by the bars of old iron grating that drew their shadows across his bed. It tasted of the sound of the early traffic, the distant blare of impatient horns. The bitter tang of exhaust fumes curled through the gaps in the insulation, less palatable that cigarette smoke, but just as much a part of him. It tasted like the heat of another body next to him, a broad dark back rivered with tattoos. Aries could remember, vaguely, seeing them for the first time. The guy had turned around - disengaging to indulge in some private moment as he slid on the condom – and Aries recalled running his fingers across his skin, tracing the inky pathways. The lines were blurred by age and sun, but they were still beautiful, and Aries wished he’d had the time or the chance to know them completely, to travel them with his fingers to completion. 

Instead, he’d been thrown onto his stomach and fucked within an inch of his life. One parcel of intimacy traded for another. If only they were of equal worth, part of him lamented; the other part was giddy with delight at the memory of sex so thorough. 

His partner had been refreshingly receptive, responding to his every snarling demand, driving into him harder and harder until there was nothing on the earth apart from the presence filling him, the world beginning and ending with the hurt. It had been a satisfying end to a day and night coloured by disappointment. His fantasy involving a sexy silver-eyed detective – who, not unimportantly, he’d been slowly working on seducing for two entire fucking years - had been curdled by some little blonde twink who’d somehow succeeded in bending over for him first. A few hours later into his shift, he’d scalded his knuckles against the steamer. Some old bitch complained that she’d been given full fat creamer instead of half. With his boss present, glaring over Aries’ shoulder as his fraying patience peeled back to it’s final threads, Aries fantasised about sending the coffee back with a dose of his spit. 

And then, when he’d lamented it all over a triple vodka with Mason later, he hadn’t even had the time for him. If a dive like Mason’s ever got busy, it was on a Friday night, and he just hadn’t the time to spend listening to Aries’ whining; not that he ever had much time for it, especially when it concerned his love life. His tolerance was measured parallel to his sobriety. On most occasions, last night a case in point, he’d just roll his eyes and tell him to score some blow (or someone to blow) and move on. 

It was easy to tell when Mason was sober, because then he wouldn’t talk to Aries at all, or hardly even look him in the face. Aries routinely felt a fleeting sense of guilt when he thought about how he was a little glad that it happened so rarely. 

Without Mason, he would be so lonely. 

Aries rolled over, the thin sheets shifting as he moved. Platinum blonde hair sprayed out across his pillow, knotted and mussed from sleep. He considered the man’s sleeping form, longer than his own, wider too, big everywhere except where it had mattered, tragically. He’d forgotten his name, or had he learned it all? Aries couldn’t recall. 

That hidden crevice beneath his ear called out to him, close and warm and secret, and Aries sought it out with his lips, one arm slipping around his waist to hug their bodies closer. He spent one delightful moment there, remembering it all, cherishing it.

The response was sudden and violent. “Don’t fucking touch me, faggot,” the man elbowed backwards with enough force that it would have bruised, but his growl of annoyance was enough of a warning to allow Aries to scoot out of the way just in time. There was a second where he allowed the revulsion to hurt, and then Aries just laughed.   
“Figures. I ain’t a mornin’ person neither.”

Dragging himself upright, Aries cracked the ache from his neck and stepped over the man, feeling around blindly with his feet until his toes found wood flooring. He yawned, stretching out as he surveyed the mess in his bedroom. Clothes were scattered in a trail that told the tale of last night’s passion. Empty Chinese cartons were there too, new ones; had they got takeout? Aries couldn’t remember that either. Most of the night he couldn’t remember apart from little hot flushes here and there, but that was just the way he liked it. What was the point in drowning sorrows if they were still gasping with life the morning after?

As he began to pick his way across the room, he placed a soothing hand on his stomach, allowing himself to regret, just for a moment, what the man in the bed had put him through, hissing in pain to bend down and snatch some clean underwear from his laundry basket. The noises, or maybe his movements, had apparently roused the man awake, because the sound of a lighter spurting to life had Aries cocking his head back around. 

He looked damn good like that, in his bed, the city morning sunlight casting a pale blue glow over his dark skin. His shoulders were broad and muscled, his clever lips curved into a thoughtful smirk. He took a draw of his cigarette and the twitch of his fingers as he disposed of ash onto the windowsill was an invitation. Aries smirked right back, tongue between his teeth as he prowled over to the bed. A chuckle slid from his throat like syrup as he placed a hand around the back of the man’s neck to steady himself as he leaned down. 

The man placed the cigarette between Aries’ lips. Maybe he wanted to watch his lips yield to an intrusion again, or maybe he thought sharing a smoke was intimate. Maybe he just wanted to see what Aries would do when provoked. “You’re sexy.”  
Aries’ eyes glittered as he inhaled. The breath of smoke that billowed out between his lips was slow. “Yeah? I know.”

That was the moment Aries decided that he’d had enough. He plucked the cigarette from his grip, took another long drag, and kept it as he turned and walked away. “Get the fuck out. I got work and no time for your shit.”

There was no question whether there would be a second date. There hadn’t even been a first.

Despite how much the man had been checking him out just a moment ago he hardly seemed upset by Aries’ sudden cold shoulder. In fact, he laughed as he stood up out of bed and began the search for his own clothes. “You were cuter with your mouth full of dick.”

Aries didn’t miss a beat, not even wasting his time to turn around in his journey to the bathroom, cigarette still perched between his fingers. “And you were cuter when you told me that dick was eight inches back at the bar, but I guess you and me both gotta wake up and smell the fuckin coffee, don’t we?” 

He finished his smoke in the bathroom, tossing the cigarette out the window half-finished before jumping into the shower. The sound of the door slamming a few seconds later told him the man had gone, and Aries was able to breathe a sigh of relief as he stamped his fist on the little radio he kept on his bathroom shelf. The static blur gave way after a few seconds to the music he needed to carry him through the motions of washing himself. The shower’s pathetic stream stuttered between hot and cold in a staccato rhythm, but Aries ignored the inconvenience as he brushed fingers through his hair, letting the water wash away the memory of last night’s kisses until all that remained were the marks. Few and far between, but they were there, they always there, in part because Aries asked for them. He begged to become their possession, just for one night. To be reassured, in the hot painful moment when they tightened their grip on his wrist and bent to sink their teeth into his collarbone, that they wanted him. To believe that they meant it when they whispered ‘you are mine’ against his throat and let him come to the vibration of it there, humming through his flesh to settle in his bones and calcify. 

Aries was always running late for work, and this morning was no exception. Once he was dressed, he took a moment to consider his reflection in the mirror while he hurriedly tied up his hair, sighing in hurried frustration as a few wayward strands refused to learn their place. None of the marks left on his skin were visible in his uniform. The makeup from last night remained only in the dark flecks that lingered in between his eyelashes. There was hardly any evidence of last night at all, when he looked like this. A different face, a different person. How many versions of Aries Fitzpatrick were there? How many did he like? How many did he loathe? Which was the real one, buried underneath? And was it one he preferred? 

Aries huffed with derisive laughter to himself as he turned away. Who the fuck cared about that kind of stupid shit anyways?

In the end, he turned up to work with a minute and a half to spare. He tied on his apron and started early anyways, grinning at his co-worker and asking them what they’d done the night before, faultlessly inventing some lie about how he’d spent his own. The day that followed was one out of a hundred before it. Aries’ upbringing had been unusual, and he knew that, hell, he only had to watch a Disney movie once a while to know that. But that didn’t mean his life didn’t grow monotonous. Weeks had become a strange, heavy ache in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t name and couldn’t shift. 

With a sigh, he stared at the door, watching through the glass at the people who passed by along the sidewalk outside as he filled up a customer’s order. Maybe it was like Mason said, and it was just one of those awkward months that felt like swallowing something bitter. He just had to work through it. Sure as hell nothing would change. Why would it? Nothing ever had before, not in the way he wanted and not when he’d wanted it, so what reason would the world have for changing now? He sighed, finished up the drink he was working on and sending it down the counter to be collected. 

Maybe tonight he’d swing around Mason’s again. It’d be busy tonight, it was a Saturday, but maybe he could steal enough time alone with him for a joint or even just a cigarette. He’d tell him he loved him and Mason would look at him like he’d seen a ghost before he hit him, then laugh. 

The bell chimed as someone new entered. Aries turned around, forcing one edge of his lips to curl upwards in a smile, not expecting his world to splinter and change forever in one precious, blue eyed moment.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! 
> 
> this is an excerpt from an rp with a friend of mine with one of my characters Aries. I understand that this lacks backstory or context but I thought it worked okay as a stand alone thing. i will say at the end though his soul mate walks through the door :)
> 
> if you want to know more about him come talk to me on tumblr!


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